Driver gets year in jail for hitting, killing man

A 28-year-old Pierce County woman was sentenced to one year and one day in prison Thursday after she admitted to fatally hitting a man who’d been running from a traffic stop on Interstate 5 last year.

Brandy Marie Marty pleaded guilty in June to failure to remain at the scene of an accident that resulted in death.

Prosecutors alleged Marty hit 45-year-old Michael Hall-berg with her car on I-5 in Fife on Nov. 19, 2009. Washington State Patrol troopers had stopped the vehicle Hall-berg was riding in and arrested the driver on suspicion of DUI.

Hallberg took off running during the stop. He was struck in the northbound lanes by a Jeep Cherokee that didn’t stop. An anonymous tipster identified Marty as the driver, and she later surrendered to authorities.

The prosecutor and Marty’s attorney agreed to recommend a sentence below the standard range, which was two years, seven months to three years, five months in prison.